Usually the formality of a vote on the reception of a report of a committee is dispensed with, the time being settled by general consent. Should any one object, a formal motion becomes necessary. When the time arrives for the assembly to receive the report, the chairman of the committee reads it in his place and then delivers it to the clerk, when it lies on the table till the assembly sees fit to consider it. If the report consists of a paper with amendments, the chairman of the committee reads the amendments with the coherence in the paper, explaining the alterations and the reasons of the committee for the amendments, till he has gone through the whole. If the report is very long it is not usually read until the assembly is ready to consider it [see §§ 31, 44].
When the report has been received, whether it has been read or not, the committee is thereby dissolved, and can act no more unless it is
report be accepted (which is equivalent to adopting it, see § 31), when the intention is only to have the report up for consideration and afterwards move its adoption. Still a third error is, to move that ‘‘the report be adopted and the committee be discharged,”—when the committee have reported in full and their report has been received, so that the committee have already ceased to exist. If the committee, however, have made but a partial report, or report progress, then it is in order to move that the committee be discharged from the further consideration of the subject.
